League to require parents to complete ethics course before kids can participate

Posted: Friday, November 19, 1999

The Associated Press

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) - A youth athletic league is adding a requirement for kids who want to strap on cleats or pick up pompoms: Their parents must learn how to behave on the sidelines.

The Jupiter-Tequesta Athletic Association, which serves 6,000 kids ages 5 to 18, is making parents take an hour-long ethics course, starting Jan. 1. If the parents refuse, the kids won't be allowed to play.

"We just want to try to de-escalate the intensity that's being shown by the parents at these games," said Jeff Leslie, the volunteer president of the association and father of four.

The association is the first in the nation to make sportsmanship training for parents a prerequisite, according to the National Alliance for Youth Sports, which developed the ethics program and teamed up with the athletic association.

The ethics program, called PAYS, short for Parents Alliance for Youth Sports, has been used in other places in the country, such as Charlotte, N.C., but it's never been mandatory, said Kathleen Avitt, the program's director.

Leslie says there haven't been any major incidents in Jupiter, about 20 miles north of West Palm Beach, but there have been small skirmishes with big potential.

"We have had parents that have been ejected from games. We've had coaches ejected from games," he said. "To my knowledge we've never had a parent physical confrontation, but we've had parent shouting matches.

"Fortunately, cooler heads have prevailed but you just never know," he said.

The program, which will cost $5 and be required for at least one parent or guardian per family, lays out the roles and responsibilities of a parent of a youth athlete in a 19-minute video and a handbook.

"It keeps in perspective what youth sports is all about, which is being positive, having fun and youth sport participation," Ms. Avitt said.

The message is subtle and upbeat.

"I will encourage good sportsmanship by demonstrating positive support for all players, coaches, and officials at every game, practice or other youth sports event," says the first of an 11-point code of ethics parents will be asked to sign.

Tony Iannitti, a father of four who coaches a boys soccer team in the association, said the parents of his players are all supportive - but he could see why the program could be helpful for some others.

"Parents get a little excited. They get exuberant and they get excited," he said. "Some parents yell things. I guess sometimes parents will go a little further than they have to."

Excitement apparently escalated out of control earlier this week in nearby Port St. Lucie, when a soccer coach was charged with simple battery for head-butting a referee, according to police.

And in the wealthy Fort Lauderdale suburb of Weston, two coaches and seven players were expelled from a youth football league after police broke up a melee Nov. 6.

Part of the problem, Leslie says, is parents believe they can influence their children's chance at getting an athletic scholarship to college, sometimes when the kids are only 5 or 6 years old. They put too much pressure on the kids and on winning, he said.

"We've had instances of little kids in softball crying on the mound because the parents embarrass the stew out of them," Leslie said.

Gino Tartaglia, who has two sons who play soccer, said he welcomes such a program.

"I think there will be a small percentage (of parents) that will resent it," said Tartaglia, who also coaches a soccer team in the Jupiter-Tequesta association. "But my impression is most of them will go along with the program."